Why go with Flare over Robohelp?

[Nita Beck]

Someone I know teaches writing at a local community college. I sometimes have thoughts about doing the same, on a weekend basis. If I may ask, why did you leave?

Purely personal reasons.
1) I ran (still run) my own business. At the time I left college teaching, I also had two kids in elementary school and middle school and a live-in elderly parent who needed more of my time and attention. Something had to give.
2) My last two years teaching, I was assigned to teach some online courses. First year was OK, though A LOT of prep work. The second year, I soured when a couple of the students seemed to think that I was supposed to be available to them 24/7. I felt abused after awhile.

[rob hollinger]

One thing I can say about RH is their customer service was exceptional. I used it for over ten years. At a new job, I was forced to switch to Flare. The person writing a comparison of the two packages wrote a totally inaccurate comparison. When I was hired, I knew all the negatives on RH were not true. But, it was too late.

The statement I've heard from many is that "Madcap puts out lots of revisions, with lots of new features - forgets to fix the bugs". I've run into this a few times. The first time I contacted Tech Support at Madcap, the rep said "oh yes, that's been broken since Flare 4." What????????????????????????????????????????? Unacceptable.

15 days after Flare was purchased, a new version came out. I told the sales rep that since it was such a short time since the purchase, we should get the upgrade for free. He wasn't amused. However, that's exactly what RH did for us several years ago. We were within 30 days of the purchase when a new revision came out. We were automatically upgraded because there were bug fixes that RH felt we would need.

My personal opinion is that Flare is liked by people who have a coding (you know who you are - programming, development, etc.) background. Unfortunately, I'm a Technical Writer and hated the two programming classes I took in college. I want to spend my time writing excellent online help - not troubleshooting or figuring out why some features that are so easy in RH and Doc-to-Help are NOT easy in Flare. OK - that's enough, off my soapbox. I won't even go into the opinion our developer gave me last week. . .
E

Wendy,
Please feel free to contact your sales rep. We will gladly go over any issues with you.
Direct: +1.858.320.0387
Toll Free US/CA: 1.888.623.2271

Anytime you have a bug or feature request, submit it. We return 100% of all submissions so you know we got it.
https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

[samjones6]

I used Robohelp for about 12 years. Just the past month, I converted a pretty complex project to Flare.

I like a lot of the Flare features. But I have to say, Flare is a LOT slower to use:

- Conditional images are not clearly shaded like in RH. It is harder to understand a page that has a lot of conditional images (I have a lot... my project compiles to eight targets, and often each target has its own image...)

- Flare is not very "keyboard savvy." Some examples:
--- Setting conditions in RH is super fast, easy and keyboard driven. In Flare, it is click city. MUCH MUCH slower for me to create new content.
--- Flare dialogs do not respect the <esc> key to cancel out / back out of the dialog. All of RH dialogs do.
--- Flare dialogs lack hot keys for OK and Cancel (RH also lacks, but can tab to em... in Flare can't tab to em)
--- Adding tables, and many other aspects requires the mouse in Flare but can be done via kbd in RH
--- Use of Function keys in Flare is a bit more limited than it should be

There you have my thoughts.

[Madcap Guru]

I know the support, I Have supported Robohelp from the Ehelp, Macromedia and Adobe days, and then worked for a few years at Madcap, Lots of differences in they way they all handled it..


If you have any questions please feel free to ask

A Former Flare/Robohelp Senior Tech Support.

[i-tietz]

Well, there are plenty of RH converts who will state the opposite. eHelp's support was good, Macromedia was OK, but as soon as Adobe got the fingers on RH support was horrible. MadCap's support is excellent.

YES!
Considering the fact that we reported bugs for spell checking and hyphenation in FrameMaker almost ten years ago and they're still not fiexd. And that in spite of them having changed the whole process of spell check ...
Our FM files are on our network, multiple users working on the same files. The help wasn't helpful (as usual) so I asked Adobe support how we can share a common dictionary ... no answer ... they probably didn't know themselves ...
Then I asked a forum and a mailing list filled with really experienced users ... still no solution.

Other users have persistent problems with printing: fonts and 4C ... luckily we don't print.

Adobe probably doesn't see the necessity for spell checking or even printing user manuals ...
The only noticable thing they did so far: They now call FM a "layout" programme ... I think that clearly shows their priorities in development.

If we could only find the time to import our FM files into Flare ... *sigh*

[RamonS]

Ah, thanks for mentioning the spell checking issues in FM. I get to review docs created in FM and I find many cases where a spell checker should have picked up on the problem. I guess it would have if it worked. And I thought our TW did that only to tease me.

[i-tietz]

And I thought our TW did that only to tease me.

Honestly? How could anybody even think of doing something like that to such an amiable person?

[samjones6]

Well, there are plenty of RH converts who will state the opposite. eHelp's support was good, Macromedia was OK, but as soon as Adobe got the fingers on RH support was horrible. MadCap's support is excellent.

Madcap does have strong support. No question.

[olson98]

I haven't had to use tech support for RH (haven't used the product for several years, actually) but I can certainly vouch for the tech support from Madcap. Even with Bronze support I had really full help from Alvaro who called me on my phone and remoted in to my machine so he could drive and let me see what he was doing to fix my problem. Very impressed.

What's wrong with this picture?

Reading through this topic has been very interesting. People who favor Flare state how good their support is. When I was using RH (10 years) I remember making 2 calls to RH support during all that time and one was a PC issue, not RH..

I'm not sure stating Flare's support is better is a good indicator of the software's functionality. NOT having to call support is the best indicator to me.

[i-tietz]

Reading through this topic has been very interesting. People who favor Flare state how good their support is. When I was using RH (10 years) I remember making 2 calls to RH support during all that time and one was a PC issue, not RH..

That's because 10 years ago the RH version was sth around 10. As you might have noticed, Flare V7 is brandnew ...

When Flare reaches V10 the support will very probably still be excellent, whereas the support from Adobe will still s...!

[Nita Beck]

Reading through this topic has been very interesting. People who favor Flare state how good their support is. When I was using RH (10 years) I remember... I'm not sure stating Flare's support is better is a good indicator of the software's functionality....

Yes, we've raved about MadCap support. AND we've raved about Flare as a product, especially as compared to RH. You're selectively quoting us (as I've selectively quoted you). I used RH for 10+ years, too, and I have no intention of returning to it given the superior documentation I can create with Flare, the superior tool in my opinion. That's what this is all about, right? Opinion, but based on experience, not on what we've heard others say.

[RuthM]

Most recently, I used Flare 7 to create online help. I just started a new job where an authoring tool has not yet been ordered but mgmt is leaning towards RoboHelp 9. I haven't used RoboHelp in at least 6 years (version I last used was probably RoboHelp 5). Would like to hear from those of you who are familiar with both RoboHelp 9 and Flare 7.

Thanks - Ruth

[samjones6]

Most recently, I used Flare 7 to create online help. I just started a new job where an authoring tool has not yet been ordered but mgmt is leaning towards RoboHelp 9. I haven't used RoboHelp in at least 6 years (version I last used was probably RoboHelp 5). Would like to hear from those of you who are familiar with both RoboHelp 9 and Flare 7.

Use robohelp. You will be much happier.

Flare is a very slow, buggy, slow to use application.

If you like to use the kbd instead of mouse, there is no question: Use robohelp.

I used robohelp for 10 years, have now used flare for one year (took classes and everything, never needed that for robohelp), and have now hired a consultant to migrate my project back to robohelp.

[samjones6]

I'm not sure stating Flare's support is better is a good indicator of the software's functionality. NOT having to call support is the best indicator to me.

You are %100 correct.

[i-tietz]

"Better" is always an indvidual judgement. Depends on how you worked before, on how much money you can spend, on how often you reach a point at which you say "I would like this and that". Means: It's what you expect for what money and what you did before.

Example:
Almost all my coworkers never worked with HTML or websites. I did and one other coworker did. The others have/had their problems with the XML editor of Flare. We came from RH working with Word - the change came close to "traumatic" for some of them. We downloaded demo versions of a few HATs and tested them.
If you do it right, I can recommend going that way - but you gotta have the right focus ...

[LTinker68]

Use robohelp. You will be much happier.

Flare is a very slow, buggy, slow to use application.

If you like to use the kbd instead of mouse, there is no question: Use robohelp.

The problems samjones6 has reported in other threads aren't common to other Flare users. Most people who use Flare love it and highly recommend it.

Would like to hear from those of you who are familiar with both RoboHelp 9 and Flare 7.

Were there any specific areas of functionality you're interested in, or just a general comparison between the two?

[samjones6]

The problems samjones6 has reported in other threads aren't common to other Flare users.

You are mistaken.

Over %90 of the issues I have reported have been either reproduced by Madcap support and/or opened as bugs by Madcap support (which they only do for serious issues that they acknowledge, not for things they think are specific to a user or PC).

Sorry.

I can tell you, from a detailed side by side comparison of Robohelp v9 vs Flare v7 that:

- Robohelp is %200-600 faster to open and edit topics
- Robohelp can be navigated and used almost %100 with the kbd, where flare is maybe %70
- Robohelp surfaces functionality like index management much closer to the topic itself, and allows this kind of work to be done via the keyboard, saving massive amounts of time and effort for the author
- You can use Robohelp for six hours without encountering glaring flaws in its design and implementation. (Flaws that push you to open bug reports with the sw publisher). Last spring I literally spent more time submitting bug reports to Madcap than I did authoring my project -- And Madcap acknowledged almost all my reports.

[i-tietz]

- Robohelp can be navigated and used almost %100 with the kbd, where flare is maybe %70

True.
But since RH is Adobe now, I think it's only a matter of time until they will get rid of that too.
I grew suspicious when they started calling FrameMaker "layout software" a few years ago. Now our AutoHotkey scripts don't work anymore because of their fancy new GUI ... we kept telling them to supply a better and more obvious handling of the dictionary for 10 years and in the new version they were hiding it even deeper in the guts of the software, making it even more obscure for the user. But the feature of "spell checking" is probably irrelevant for "layout software" ...
We produce manuals with a few hundred pages ... and we're thinking of getting ourselves an external tool to check the spelling.

I am a member of a mailing list for FM pros and we still don't get answers for our questions about dictionary and spell checking.
See what I mean? It's a matter of what you need and of how you work.

And yes, we have to face it: We're "out"!
The up-and-coming generation isn't used to using a keyboard - they use touchscreens and touchpads, and speech input is on the horizon.
We (people working with software for more than 20 or 25 years) will buy software for maybe another 10 to 15 years, but big software producers wanna have a foot in the door of the new customers, because it's better for Adobe's and MadCap's future. They will produce "believing followers" who will stick to them just like you stick to working with a keyboard instead of a mouse, a trackball or a touchpad ...

[RuthM]

Were there any specific areas of functionality you're interested in, or just a general comparison between the two?

Lisa, one of my main concerns is which tool is better at producing a wide variety of help formats (with as little pain as possible). At this point, I an not certain what types of output I may need to produce (WebHelp, PDF, Mobile, etc.) so whatever tool I select needs to be able to (more or less) handle it all!

Other than that, I'm looking for more of a general comparison between the two, something reasonably unbiased from actual users rather than the vendors' glowing reports on how their tool is better than the other.

[samjones6]

Lisa, one of my main concerns is which tool is better at producing a wide variety of help formats (with as little pain as possible). At this point, I an not certain what types of output I may need to produce (WebHelp, PDF, Mobile, etc.) so whatever tool I select needs to be able to (more or less) handle it all!

Other than that, I'm looking for more of a general comparison between the two, something reasonably unbiased from actual users rather than the vendors' glowing reports on how their tool is better than the other.

Here is my analysis:

The Flare compiler is very good, and is very good at producing multiple outputs.

The Flare editor is really quite bad. Quick Example: If you have a paragraph 30 lines long, and want to edit the text on the tenth line, how many times do you press the down-arrow key?
- Robohelp: 10
- Word: 10
- Everything except Flare: 10
- Flare: 20

That gets pretty old pretty fast.

The Flare Editor, and the way the project is organized in terms of managing TOC, Index, Topics, Images, is not laid out is cleanly as Robohelp. Flare suffers from feature duplication, of old and new areas of content management, with slightly different features. The Flare UI lacks consistency, and many dialogs cannot be keyboard driven. Many UI areas in the editor are very slow to open, or very slow to use. Example: Making a link (href) to a bookmark in another page: In Robohelp: It is super quick, grab it from a list. Can be done completely with kbd. In Flare: Requires mouse, requires opening multiple dialogs. Very cumbersome.

Again, the Flare compiler is better for some things. Example: PDF output: The Flare compiler does it directly. Robohelp goes from RH -> Word -> PDF. (Some users like this, because they touch it up in Word before making the PDF. I do not like it, because it is fragile, and our build system lacks Word.)

For me, the #1 consideration is my personal productivity, and that means the usability of the editor. The Flare editor is a LARGE step down from every other tool I have seen or used. I have made a supreme effort to learn and use Flare (the only software class I have taken in 25 years in the industry was a Flare class). We purchased the good support plan. I emailed and spoke with support many many times (over 50 times, if you want to know, where with Robohelp prob only contacted them once in ten years). I made a huge effort with Flare, larger than I ever have, with any tool.

For raw productivity, the Flare editor is simply far from the competition.

[i-tietz]

@Samjones 6: You're rampaging. Calm down.

What other editors have you used? HTML? XML? FM in it's structured or normal version? Word?
And in what version? How long did the developers work on it?

@Ruth: As you see expectations are individually different. If you're not working with the keyboard a lot and if you don't have paragraphs 30 line long, your needs are different from samjones's. YOU are the one who will have to work with it.
Make a list of all the things from those you do every day up to those you do about twice a year.
Then download demo versions. If you need a list of the most common HATs, try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_he ... ring_tools

Take at least a day or two for each tool and check your work flows. If you can, use your biggest project. See how far you get.
By then you have specific questions about things you want to be able to do but cannot find. That's the time when you should come back here and ask for those things. Asking for overall opinions is not helping you with your decision.

[samjones6]

@Samjones 6: You're rampaging. Calm down.

What other editors have you used? HTML? XML? FM in it's structured or normal version? Word?

Does the above matter in a discussion of Flare vs Robohelp?

Robohelp html editor: 3-5 or more years
Robohelp Word: 3 years
Dreamweaver: 10+ yrs
Delphi
Visual Studio
Notepad ++
Word
etc

Why is this relevant what I have used? We are comparing Flare to Robohelp HTML (not Robohelp Word, that is tooooo old)

And in what version? How long did the developers work on it?

Who cares?

I am a user and want the best HAT editor... and Flare is clearly not it (to everyone, even senior folks at MadCap).


This forum has a lot of Flare "mad for flare" types. Which is fine.

There are also "mad at Flare" types, who are mostly gone from this forum. I am one who is still around.

Flare will either have a magic new version to fix their flaws, or we will get our project converted back to robohelp. I don't know which will come first.

[i-tietz]

What other editors have you used? HTML? XML? FM in it's structured or normal version? Word?

Does the above matter in a discussion of Flare vs Robohelp?

Ruth has to validate your statements. So it's relevant because it's important what you compare Flare with. That way Ruth can tell whether it's important for her, because only she knows what sorts of experience she has:
If you compared it to the structured FM or sth like XMetal (an XML editor) then that would mean: You know other XML editors and it can be done better.
If you came from Word it'd simply be the fact that Flare uses an XML editor and you're not used to in one ... e.g. my coworkers worked with Word before and had your opinion for long.
=>
If Ruth comes from Word she gotta know that XML editors (including the Flare one) are very different. If she worked with XMetal before she can find out whether Flare is better/worse/the same.

And in what version? How long did the developers work on it?

Who cares?

If you had worked with Word 4 under DOS you would know. Word has improved a lot since then (at least up to Word 2003 ... afterwards ... I don't wanna talk about it ).
Maybe Ruth is willing to wait for better versions of a new tool instead of deciding for an "old" tool now with limited outlook to be developed the way she would need. For us that was the case, when we decided for Flare. RH is Adobe now and e.g. for FM the last two new versions didn't make things any better for us, because Adobe thinks a different direction. - In fact things became worse ... work is harder now and more error-prone.
Once you decided for a tool, switching isn't that easy. Persuading those who are supposed to pay for it is only the first step - according to what you told us you are a damn good example for that situation, don't you think?


Of course all this only applies, if you're writing in this thread because you want to help Ruth and not simply to rant.
If you just want to rant: Go on - you're on a good way.

[Scotty]

15 days after Flare was purchased, a new version came out. I told the sales rep that since it was such a short time since the purchase, we should get the upgrade for free. He wasn't amused. However, that's exactly what RH did for us several years ago. We were within 30 days of the purchase when a new revision came out. We were automatically upgraded because there were bug fixes that RH felt we would need.

I also mentioned that in my note. I've made the exact opposite experience.

Same experience as olson98, but worse as it was a matter of days after buying the key. The sales rep went into full-on sales pitch mode, repeatedly trying to sell me maintenance plans. Extremely arrogant and seemingly purposefully abrasive behaviour.